


It Was Just Flowers

by MissFLT



Category: Star Wars - Aftermath Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Norra is in charge now, Unrequited Love, what are rebels without a rebellion?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:30:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFLT/pseuds/MissFLT
Summary: Norra Wexley has a problem. After the attack on Chandrila and the disappearance of the person who was once her husband, and before she traipses off on what may be a pointless mission, there is something she needs to get off her shoulders.





	It Was Just Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't help but want to explore Wedge Antilles and Norra Wexley's relationship a little further. I was originally going to make this drabble disgustingly smutty, but realised it needed a bit of sensitivity, considering everything that the pair have been through together, and Antilles' iconic role, and also all the baggage that comes from the Rebellion. I hope I have broached the subject of their unrequited love honourably. I would love your input!
> 
> By the way, Wedge's statement about retirement was taken from X-Wing: Isard's Revenge, and another phrase he says comes from Legacy of the Force: Betrayal.

Norra couldn't stop thinking about that bouquet of flowers he had been holding after the team arrived back from Kashyyyk. Standing alongside Leia, bearing an expression of hope just like the Princess's, Wedge had visibly paled upon seeing the man following her off the ramp. His hand, and the sun-dew flowers, wrapped in soft tissue paper, had slowly dropped down to his side, a few stray petals dropping to the ground.

She had felt a pressure in her throat then, and behind her eyes, but quickly swallowed it all back. Everything had changed.

The weeks after the Kashyyyk mission passed by in a blur. Norra had tried to slide back into the role of mother and wife, but found she had forgotten most of the recipes she had used before. If it weren't for the blessing of her sister, her family would have remained unsatisfyingly fed for the whole month before Liberation Day. It didn't help that Brentin was ... different. Oh, he and Temmin were getting along swimmingly, almost as though he had never left. But there were moments when he just seemed to disappear, his gaze travelling to some far off space she could not hope to contact. And if sitting around the table pretending to be part of a happy, whole family wasn't awkward enough, it was nothing like suddenly sharing a bed with him after years and years without a proper bed, nevermind with the body of someone alongside her who was almost nothing more than a memory of someone in the past, not the person at all.

Temmin watched her like a hawk and blamed every awkward moment on her, she was certain. At the beginning, she had tried to be affectionate. She gripped Brentin's hand tightly in hers as they met various dignitaries, as they prepared for Liberation Day at tailors and cooks and barbers. She had tried to kiss him on those lips she used to love, but had defaulted to cheek kisses - her guilt wouldn't allow her anything else. She had tried to fold his clean laundry as though she'd never held the shift of an X-Wing in her hand before. She had held him helplessly as he laid his head on her chest and cried deep into the night. But she hated herself, because what she had felt for him was gone. She had left it somewhere between her deep desire to rescue him all those years ago when she abandoned Temmin on Akiva and the new person she had become who was terrified and wary and always ready to run or attack or both.

Her best moments during that month were small escapes: trips to the grocer, caff with her sister on the rooftop of her little home ... and most of the gatherings of her fellow pilots and rebels. Especially those that Wedge attended.

Moments with him were awkward to be sure, but awkward in a way that made the caterpillars in her stomach spread their wings and take flight. She laughed more around him, smiled more around him, and felt something deep in her core that she had not felt long before Temmin had been born.

She lay in bed at night, unable to sleep, picturing Wedge's smile, replaying small touches over in her head, and sometimes stifling the strange teenage-like giggles that rose up from that happy place deep inside her.

It wasn't as though she had suddenly formed feelings for Wedge: no, they had been building steadily for almost as long as she had been part of the rebellion, and for some reason the return of her husband did nothing to stifle them. In fact, it was almost easier now, because she knew she no longer loved him. She no longer even knew him. But she knew Wedge.

It was utter chaos after Chancellor Mon Mothma was shot, along with several members of the gathering on Liberation Day. Brentin had disappeared from her husband's eyes again and turned his hidden blaster to Mothma, and in the flurry of bodies he had simply disappeared. One consolation was that Temmin could acknowledge that nothing was the same, could ever be the same, and that his father - whole and happy - might never return.

The other was that Wedge still shone in the darkness like a beacon. She felt no love for her husband any longer, but, as always, Norra was weighted down by her responsibility to duty, and she needed to find Brentin, if only to take the control chip out of his mind and save what was left. It would be a wonderful prize if Rae Sloane could be taken down at the same time.

But.

Before she did that, she had a score to settle with herself. And with Wedge.

She knew where he was, in that strange way that someone in love knows. _Was it love?_ Norra didn't even know for sure. But she could very well die in the next day and she wasn't going to let this opportunity pass her by any more.

Giddy as a bee with its pollen sacs full, she approached him from behind. He was overseeing cargo movement in the bay, close to the Halo, and, though her hand, and her heart, were trembling, she was going to do this. She deserved just this little bit of happiness, after everything. _Didn't she?_

"Wedge", she said from behind him, hoping her voice didn't betray her.

He turned and smiled at her. "Norra!" His smile killed her. "Fancy meeting..." but he couldn't finish his sentence as she suddenly crowded into his space, reached up on her toes and pushed her mouth to his. Her eyes were closed as he remained immobile under her ministrations, but only for a moment before he enveloped her in his arms and deepened the kiss, letting out a sound that would have been a sigh if he could breathe but came out as a groan instead, vibrating through Norra's lips and down her spine.

Panting, they pulled away from each other for a moment, their smiles and hooded eyes competing for position as most content.

"Wh..." Wedge started, but his voice came out as a croak, a testament to how deeply the kiss had affected him. He cleared it and was about to say something, but Norra grabbed his hand and pulled him up the ramp into the Halo. She laughed at herself as she realised she was dragging this man into the same room where Jas and Jom had become intimately acquainted. _Wedge must think I'm crazy_ , she thought.

After he was all the way in, she closed and locked the door, but she didn't turn around yet, the final wave of anxiety hitting her as her hands pressed on the cold door. But Wedge came up to her from behind. "Norra," he whispered, and his puff of breath floated ever so softly over her hair. She closed her eyes at the sensation and turned around; he was much closer than she thought. She could see a day's growth of stubble on his chin, the cupid's bow of his upper lip, the deep brown of his eyes. How had she never noticed those flecks of gold?

They stood for an impossible moment, and Norra realised that she would have to lead them now, where he had led them all before.

She took a deep breath and pushed his chest, walking him backwards.

"I'm sorry it has to happen like this." A step backwards.

"But I don't have much time." Another step, and one loosened button at his chest.

"I may not ever have the time again." Another step, and she started unbuttoning her own suit.

"I don't need you to say anything," she said as his mouth started to open. A final step back to the bunk, and another button open. "I just need you to do."

She saw Wedge watching her lips, and he checked her eyes one more time before he kissed her again, finally starting to reciprocate her undressing hands. When they both worked at it, they made quick work of removing their clothing. Norra, suddenly feeling very exposed, could feel the blush rising up her neck and cheeks and Wedge took her in, as she took him in; these two friends, these two who had never admitted how much they meant to each other.

She looked down modestly, as though she was surprised at being completely nude in front of him, and her hands twitched with the self-conscious need to cover herself. "I haven't done this in a while."

He cleared his throat. "Neither have I." He reached out a hand and pulled her softly towards him, reaching for her face with his other hand. "You're more beautiful than I could have imagined, Norra."

She regained her confidence and resolve at that, pushing him down to the bed and straddling him. "Are you sure?" he asked, a final flicker of doubt in the gathering of his brows.

"I've been so lost, with everything," Norra said, "But about this..." She leaned over and kissed him. "...I'm sure."

\---

Norra had missed it. She had missed so much. As she lay in Wedge's arms, one hand making little circles on her arm, the other's fingers intertwined with hers, she thought about everything that she had lost in her fight against the Empire. Of everything that so many people had lost. The tears pooled at the corner of her eyes unbidden, and she sniffed softly.

"What is it, Norra?"

She sniffed again before replying. "I feel sad for everyone."

He chuckled a little. "You're not responsible for everyone.

"If we worried about that sort of thing, we'd never get some sleep."

Norra looked at him. "But how do we move on from this? Can we?"

Wedge wiped the pad of his thumb over a lost tear on her cheek. "It's been eight or nine years now that I've been fighting against the Empire. There were times I didn't think I was going to live another moment. I don't think I ever let myself dream I might survive this long, to see this sort of victory. This was always a goal, but now that it's here … I never really dared let myself look beyond the next battle, and now, it seems, there might truly be an end to the warfare. I don't know what I'll do with myself.

"I don't know what any of us will do with ourselves. We'll never be the same."

"No, we won't." Norra sighed.

She cuddled her face into his chest.

"By the way..." she started, "...thank you."

"For what?"

"The flowers."


End file.
